Modern Day Catastrophists
by Raziel the Selkie
Summary: They're the modern day catastrophists They've got practical solutions They're the self-appointed righteous pragmatists And they know fifty ways to save the world


**Modern Day Catastrophists**

**Author's Notes**: Inspired by the Bad Religion song Modern Day Catastrophists. Dedicated to K2-Romance, who is a fan of Matt and Mello, and also written in honor of HeatherTheVillian and BiOCaAM, who helped spur on this story by giving me the extra encouragement to actually sit down and write the project.

_They're the modern day catastrophists  
They've got practical solutions  
They're the self-appointed righteous pragmatists  
And they know fifty ways to save the world_

_What makes you think you can cure our disease?  
Maybe it's just our biology  
Maybe it's time to make room for another species  
This is the 21st century_

_They're the modern day catastrophists  
They know all the right equations  
They're the self-appointed righteous pragmatists  
And you too can be one of the few to save the world_

:: Modern Day Catastrophists ::

- Bad Religion -

**Chapter One**

Matt never considered himself a hero-it almost seemed pretentious in a way, especially since he was nothing more than a chain-smoking techno junkie who surrounded himself in his comforting world of perpetual static and pixilated visuals, watching the world crumble all around him. He was a spectator by nature, passively over-viewing his life from a third person perspective-he was neither Matt nor Mail Jeevas, simply a concept, as far as he thought of himself. Matt was simply content to isolate himself in his video games, soaking in hedonistic pleasures like smoking. It kills him, he knows, but whenever he smokes, he thinks clearly-it was a wonderful synapse enhancer that helped lift him out of the monotony of his life, a world of sights and sounds and monochrome. Disconnected is the best way to describe his entire life, and whenever he turns on whatever electronic device, he feels some kind of synchronization; a momentary glimpse of that fabled connection that made him validate his existence, of feeling real.

Mello certainly never thought of himself as a hero, either. In fact, Mello scoffed at the term-he remembered a conversation that the both of them had that Mello referred to themselves as modern-day catastrophists. To Matt, he liked the prospect of it all. Modern day catastrophists, living in a delirium of disorder, thriving in chaos. It had a nice ring to it, it really did. When Matt pondered over such a term, it contained a kind of powerful gravity, a near sacred authority. Matt and Mello, Mail Jeevas and Mihael Keehl, the modern day catastrophists. The prophetic figures of revolution, striving to move the world as agents of chaos in a torrential whirlwind of vertiginous disorientation, Matt and Mello stood dead-center in it all, untouchable and unshakeable, incorruptible in their unwavering resolve to move this deadened world, a spectral world of fever dreams and mirrors.

He never cared about this world, a world of disillusionment and funhouse corridors that revealed the helter-skelter connection of his life in disjointed images with no connecting lines at all. Apathy was deliberately instilled into himself to numb the shocking cold reality that settled into the very marrow of his bones, chilling him to the core. Sometimes he saw the hallucinatory mirage of something beyond his peripheral vision, a ghost that flickered and receded into a super-imposed image of his unsettling nightmares behind closed eyelids, haunting him with its outlined shadow obscuring the revelatory insight that glimmered just beyond his conceptual imagining like the dawning of an eclipse. The childhood nightmares of the institution with its stark white walls and dead-eyed children recurred throughout his memory, emerging from the depths of his subconscious malice that festered with decaying emotions, emotions Matt thought were long gone by now, simply the same spectral ghosts he exorcised from the lonely labyrinth of his mind. He tried remembering them as a series of blurs, impressionistic smears to soften the sharpened visuals of perpetual white and glaring overhead lights highlighting these ruthless children driven to near depravity to surpass their fellow competitors.

Their expressions were forever seared into his memory like some macabre depiction of de Goya's nightmarish illustrations. Sometimes he saw Mello's face distorted into the same maddening expression, a caricature of humanity, and Matt was fucking frightened by the implications, waking up in a cold sweat in drenched sheets mummifying his cadaverously chilled form. If he spied through the metaphorical looking glass, would he have seen his own expression marred into some beastly visage? Did he display the same bloodlust that gleamed in the other Wammy children's eyes as they fought and wrestled with one another for intellectual superiority, that carnally crazed gleam reflecting the profundity of madness? Yet Matt knew that the true horror of the Wammy House was the harder everyone competed, the more they lost themselves. Always overlooked, eclipsed underneath the world's greatest detective as disposable units, born and bred to shed all sense of individuality to become that single letter title: L. Near was the most terrifying example of them all, lacking all human emotion, the hiatus of elation and passion; merely an android wearing the guise of a human. Mello nearly lost himself in the struggling competition; but when L died, Mello unintentionally stumbled upon a revelation. 

x.x.x 

The music pulsed and thrummed, sending Matt's blood in a sweet, delirious rush. The smoke-filled car emitted a lethargic haze. Matt isolated himself in the deafening ambience of electronic music, pulsing through one ear and out the other in a thunderous bass only perceptible as sound waves rather than tangible thing perceived through the thin membrane of the ear drum. Matt could also feel the electric impulses in his brain translate the delirious pulse of the music in a near secret language only registered by the undercurrent of subconscious thoughts. Through his goggle-blue vision, half-hooded green eyes curiously swiveled side to side. His expression almost appeared lethargic, giving the impression of a dullard, though in actuality, Matt keenly observed everything around him.

A spectator by nature, Matt usually downplayed his mannerisms and demeanor so as not to draw attention to himself. Despite his unusual attire, most people usually lost interest in him as he remained unresponsive, isolated in his own personal world. Matt always blended in as another faceless person in a crowd of people in perpetual motion. Normally, Matt didn't leave the squalid apartment quarter he survived in for who knows how long (Matt never kept track of the days, anymore-they all seemed to rush together in a series of rushing sunrises and sunsets, leaving him alone in his own personal vertigo). However, Matt was in a rather unusual mood today, and this called for an unusual occasion. Ever since Mello contacted him, relaying details about some delusional psychopath named Kira, it made Matt pause and reflect his surroundings. Not that Matt was a philosophical type, mind you, as he didn't really like spending time thinking, despite his intellect, his natural brilliance. What Matt cared about the most was the _now_, the present. Everything else remained peripheral. Yet, Mello embodied everything-past, present, future-the manifestation of omnipotence, or so it seemed to Matt.

_It's been a while_, Matt thought, a certain surrealistic clarity to the words that elicited a grease of nostalgia in the lens of his memory. _Now I'm getting involved in some crazy Kira shit, knowing I can die any moment, but you know, I don't really care._

Nicotine craving overcoming him, Matt pulled a cigarette with slender fingers firing up the lighter, before inducing himself in a hazy smoke-filled bliss. A sudden pause and smoky exhalations spewed forth through his lips. He subconsciously tapped a bit of ash from the cigarette, before inhaling a mellow lungful of that nicotine-rich smoke. Ah, glorious, this all was. The addictive nicotine sent him in a delirious rush, the smell of smoke nearly arousing, more erotic than the naked body of a woman endowed with the right proportions, silken skin, and a face featured in an eroticomaniac's most vivid, sweat-drenched dream. Of course, Matt loved beautiful women as much as the next male with a healthy sex drive, but smoking-ah, such wonderful release, more satisfying than the climactic orgasm with a partner ruthlessly synchronized to every need, every impulse. How he loved this near sinful indulgence, more enticing than sex ever would be. Sometimes Matt smoked so many cigarettes that his lungs and throat burned with the bitter after-taste of ash and he could still smell the cloying scent of smoke forming an invisible misty aura around him, but Matt didn't care.

It's killing him, slowly but surely while festering within his lungs as a cancerous black toxin. But what did Matt care if he died? Now, he wasn't suicidal, but when things involved Kira, untimely deaths seemed inevitable. Might as well enjoy life as much as he can. He had a feeling he didn't have much time to live, either; it was cliché, though Matt felt a premonitory sensation that somehow Kira would drag them all with him in his decadent world of terror and nightmares. Puffing out a few more smoke-filled exhalations, Matt then let out what was meant to be a cleansing breath, but instead came out as a melodramatic sigh. Another day without hearing from Mello-doing what some non-existent god knew what. He remembered receiving a call from Mello what seemed an eternity ago, convincing Matt to leave the Wammy House and track down Kira together. Matt agreed, because Mello was the person who pulled him out of the almost depressing monotony of his life. Even though Mello remained rather cryptic and didn't expose too many details, Matt went ahead and severed his ties with the Wammy House. Simple enough, because Matt never connected with the other children anyway-he usually associated them by numbers according to the ranks rather than names. So leaving presented no difficulties to the chain-smoking gamer.

Currently, Matt was situated in Los Angeles, where he believed Mello to be located. As always, Mello always remained his mysterious self, leaving vague clues that hinted his whereabouts. Though Matt knew Mello would be here-it wasn't through logical deductions or pinpointing intellect, but rather through intuition. Matt was smart enough to draw his own conclusions, however, yet when it involved Mello, there seemed to be a magnetic compellation that drew Matt towards him, no matter the distance. Matt managed to support himself, despite what his poor living conditions would indicate, using his computer to siphon money from various banks on an unknown account. Yet it came to this, compulsively sucking on his ash-filled cigarette. Was this how Matt was going to continue spending his days, while Kira continued his mass killings and Mello obsessively chased after the murderer? Without Mello, he didn't have any motivation, really; as far as Matt was concerned, he didn't want to capture Kira or fight against him for the notion of justice or for revenge.

No, what Matt wanted most was to be by Mello's side. Simply the two of them together against the world. That's how it's always been, until Mello left without a word. Matt wouldn't hear from him for another year, and even then, Mello didn't have much to say. Only that Matt should leave the Wammy House and join him in a suicidal venture to war against Kira. Matt didn't know why he agreed. He could've simply said 'I won't die for you, Mello'. It would've been so much simpler-it would've been the smarter thing to do. Yet Matt said yes. After the brief exchange they've shared on the phone, the line long since cut then, Matt remembered listening to the comforting static he always associated with tranquility, serenity. As if striving to hear phantasmal voices through the telecommunications network in a labyrinth of fiber-optics and electrical signal transmissions. Any remnant of him, to let Matt know that he was more than simply a blurred memory. Matt worried about the Mello, sometimes, though he knew that Mello's quick wits got him out of the trouble as easily as they got him in dangerous situations. Somehow, though, despite the fact he considered the leather-clad blond as his god (ironic, since he never really believed in God, though Mello managed to lure him into his beautiful blasphemy of a disillusioned world), there never seemed a point where all of them, he and Mihael Keehl, seemed so fallible in their mere mortality.

Matt remained oblivious to the scene around him now, completely absorbed in his own thoughts. In perfect isolation like the ghostly static that haunted him a long time ago when he last spoke with Mello, Matt fell into himself like a collapsed star and began to think. It's been a while since he's last seen Mello. Matt always had a disconcerting feeling in the back of his mind that Mello would be dead before Matt could ever meet him again. That, more than anything, was something Matt feared the most in this world. It wasn't the lack of an afterlife, no, because Matt always knew there would be no afterlife for him, or for Mello. That is why Matt always focused on the present, so he wouldn't worry about the future or dwell on regrets on the past.

Yet the world kept on revolving, and Matt trapped in its focal point like the eye of a tornado, everything else in perpetual motion while Matt remained in complete stillness. As far as Matt was concerned in this crazy and unpredictable world, Matt wouldn't have it any other way. What a mad world they lived in, these two broken prodigies who struggled to find identities for themselves rather than submitting underneath the shadow of L. In the series of whirlwind events that forced the both of them where these sporadic changes dictated them to go, Matt somehow felt a premonition that everything they've been looking for would be found in the city of angels.

x.x.x

Los Angeles. This is where they would both find their revelations, isn't it? Matt didn't know, and he didn't care to think about anything. The only thing he wanted was to catch a glimpse of Mello's face once more, not the super-imposed image recreated behind dark eyelids, the optical replica of Mello, his Mello, but Mihael, the blond who'd he known so intimately. Matt forced himself to keep an imprinted image of Mello's face in his memory, seeing that phantasmal image flicker throughout the figurative mirrors lining the corridors of his mind, viewing ephemeral phantasms of the golden haired boy with seraphic blue eyes to the gangling teenager until, all of sudden, he became a faceless memory, verifying Matt's fears. Matt could see a faint outline, only a receding golden halo of hair with blue eyes hidden amongst shadowed edges that obscured his facial features.

When Mello appeared again, Matt didn't recognize the leather-clad monster who emerged into his deplorable apartment, rosary clutched in his gloved hand and a gun casually gripped in the other. The pivotal point of the world resided here, a tilted axis of gravity and emotion suffocating Matt into speechlessness as he stared at his best friend through the blue lens of his goggled vision. Numbed, completely disconnected, Matt slowly began reconfiguring all his half-remembered visions into this broken messiah standing before him, the illuminating halo of his hair darkened into tarnished gold, blue eyes unfathomably devoid of merciful humanity. No, this terrible figure standing before him represented the antithesis of the golden boy he always knew; this was no longer Mihael, nor was he entirely Mello, either. No, this was a stranger; and the steady blue-eyed gaze that Mello maintained with the redhead remained foreign to him.

The silence hovered between them, near suffocating with its gravity. Matt nearly choked, not from restrained emotion, but from the sick irony of it all. Here stood his Mello (Mihael) before him, but instead of verifying his memories, the glass mirrors merely shattered into several fragmented pieces. No, this wasn't the person he knew at all-this was an icon of all perversity and blasphemy. It all seemed sickeningly hallucinatory to Matt, who near staggered from the utter surrealism of the entire situation, but he knew that Mello himself stood there, real and defined, yet inhuman in his profane image. Yes, inhuman; no one could describe the terrible reflection wrought upon Mello's visage-a revolting distortion of everything Matt ever remembered, but the twisted irony was that Mello truly appeared like a rebel angel pitched from paradise, with his golden hair and chilling blue eyes.

It was Mello who spoke first, breaking the silence between them, the tension rising like a blood pressure.

"I decided to take the initiative and hunt you down," Mello stated, his voice smooth. "I figured you wouldn't get off your slacker ass and actually seek me out, so I was willing to force my way into this hellhole of an apartment. I've been through a lot of shit, coping with chaos on a near daily basis. But you know what? I refuse to die as a statistic. A number. But that's what we've always been. Isn't that right, Matt?"

It took Matt a few heartbeats of silence to finally respond, still trying to cope with this desecrated image of what he remembered of Mello, his Mihael. "Mello, what happened to you?"

At this, a sharp bark of laughter escaped from the leather-clad blond, eyes narrowing into cold slits as a sardonic edge began to filter into his tone. "So much for a happy reunion. I thought you would be happy to see me, Mattie. It's only been two years, right? Oh, during that time, I could've possibly been killed by Kira and rotting underneath some unnamed grave. What would've you done then? Become part of the statistics, too? You always had this obsessive need for me, didn't you? I know you did; you still do. Which is why you came to seek me out- it's also why you couldn't refuse my request."

Madness, insanity; Matt found himself spiraling onto the edge of a brink, bracing himself for the breathless free-fall. Somehow, he could've simply let go and allowed himself to succumb to this base desire, this incessant need for release. He wanted to let go of everything; disconnect himself, but something in the blond elicited unwanted emotions he restrained into the recesses of his mind, sending them buoying to the surface. Matt suddenly felt the suffocating pressure weighing down upon him like the crushing weight of the ocean's unfathomable depths, drowning underneath everything. Breathe, his mind urged, keep breathing. It's the steady pulse of these thoughts, synced with his heartbeat that allowed him to continue on, to hold together. If he couldn't hold on for the both of them, then what would become of everything that they worked so hard for?

"I came because I didn't want to see you make a damned mess of yourself," Matt said, a hint of disgust in his voice, the most emotion he had ever exhibited these past few years. "You changed, Mello; I don't even recognize you anymore. Hell, I should've just said that I wouldn't do this with you. It would've been the smart thing to do; but here I am. I'm willing to throw away my life, even if my death was completely meaningless, because of you. And now, look at yourself; you're a fucking joke."

The blond merely raised an eyebrow at this, seemingly undeterred from Matt's scathing comment. For some reason, Matt's blood pulsed with nova-white anger-and Matt felt the temporary impulse to punch Mello across the face, feeling the twisted satisfaction of bloodying his knuckles against yielding flesh. Instead, Matt merely curled his gloved hands into fists, knuckles prominent from the taut pressure while his eyes glared through the blue film of his goggles toward the blond.

"I'm the fucking joke, Matt? Look at yourself. Pathetic. You would have no idea what to do without me; the only reason why you came was because that gave you something to do. See, Matt, you have this co-dependency issue; you have no idea what to do with your sorry ass, so you look up to someone stronger than you to tell you what to do. It doesn't matter if that same person treats you like shit, or insults you or beats you, because you always, always take it like the dog you are. It's because you don't care about anything-not even yourself. And that is the exact reason why you came to Los Angeles."

"You don't know _shit_ about me, Mello."

"Go ahead, keep deluding yourself. You can keep saying that as much as you want, but the both of us know I'm telling the truth. You're simply too weak to admit it to me."

Matt gritted his teeth, stunned breathless from Mello's piercingly cruel words; yet Matt couldn't bring himself to contradict them because Matt knew that Mello was right, just like he always had been. It didn't make it any less painful, but at least there was some kind of justification that Matt was the fuck up he was, right? Was he supposed to take comfort in that? Matt didn't know; he suddenly felt incredibly weary, simply wanting to close his eyes and blank out the vision of the leather-clad blond before him, that perversely irritating smile stretched taut against his lips in triumph, of self-indulgent satisfaction in knowing that he ultimately won. It was a twisted game both of them played, and it was one that Mello always managed to outmaneuver him on; whether it was through effective verbal evisceration that stripped him down to naked vulnerability that exposed all his weaknesses to the blond, or outright aggression that left purpled bruises and split lips or black eyes.

However, there was something different in Mello's expression, one that made Matt's blood alternatively chill and pulse with heat; contempt. The same scornful expression his mother and father bore toward their illegitimate child, that hateful visage of loathing embodied upon Mello's once seraphic features. Matt gritted his teeth, grinding them until his jaw ached from this self-abuse, but he didn't care; he wouldn't cry out, he wouldn't complain, he would simply accept whatever Mello said because it was true; he simply took everything like the fucking dog he was. He knew it, but most of all, Mello knew it, and it was a fact he exploited in these heated disputes of theirs. Only a slight quirk of his lips, and Mello turned, a vision of a blurred halo in cinematographic motion, before finally stalking out the door, leaving behind a silence that created a void.

x.x.x

Pathetic. That's what Matt was; what a pitiful and loathsome and contemptible child he was, merely a broken prodigy who couldn't function in the real world; no, not after what that damnable institution had done to them. To all of them. There was no way that any of them could hope to be normal once again, not after the kind of life they've lived. They were infallible, they were corruptible, but most of all, they were mortal. Even if L laid buried deep underneath an unmarked grave in Kira's homeland, his shadow perpetually cast over them like an immortal eclipse into darkness, into obsolete obscurity. He dies as a legend while all the children who serve as their predecessors only take on his title, only to silently fade away as though they never existed in the first place, having no records of their former selves or lives which have been conveniently destroyed by the Wammy House. No, no matter what Matt and Mello did, they would fade away from recognition; and that's probably what scared Mello the most.

Even if Mello didn't want to admit it, Matt knew his psychology pretty well, despite all his mercurial shifts in attitude; predictable in his unpredictability, so to speak. Mello wanted to change the world; not through altruistic purposes, but to simply make the world _move_. Mello constantly told him how the world was deadened; how it remained so still. Sometimes Matt felt this deadness, a stagnant suffocation that hovered over all of them. If they couldn't move themselves from L's haunting shadow, then they would move the world. That's the only thing they could do, wasn't it? Driven desperado from everything that's happened, from the haunting memories of that institution that near driven them insane from the competition, the betrayal, and the high-pressure academics that dictated their worthiness, their validity. Survival of the smartest, so to speak. If they failed, then they would wallow in the despair of their failure, their utter uselessness.

Some have even been driven to suicide; Matt would always remember A's tragic end as he came to the realization that he would never, ever become L. The pressure had become too much; and the eclipse consumed him into total darkness. Perhaps A made the smartest choice. Some may have called it cowardly or pathetic , though Matt thought his predecessor outwitted them all. After all, he no longer had to go through prolonged torture; and never lost sight of himself through it all. Matt seen how the children eventually lost their identities, only becoming shallow clones of this selfish detective. He might have admired the detective once. They all did; especially Mello.

Mello studied the hardest out of all of them, forcing himself to the top through sheer will and unrelenting passion. Matt often found himself jealous of the blond, who was stronger than he ever could be. Even though Mello wasn't as unreachable as L or even Near, Mello was still Matt's leather-clad god.

Steadfast in his fallibility, unwavering in his mortality, and resigned to his unchangeable fate, Mello stood as an icon of humanity. Nobody else displayed the emotions he did; from passion to pathos, Mello could elicit and stir inspired emotion in other people, the epitome of extremities, the delirium of disorder. The other children lost their humanity, their emotions; simply empty vessels stripped of everything, from their names to their backgrounds and their memories, but most of all, their very essence.

Worst of all, there were children who even forgot their names. Despite being prodigies, they were still impressionable and malleable; easily exploited for the intellectual experiments Wammy tested on these vulnerably young children. Matt remembered first entering Wammy's, wide-eyed and tentative. He felt alone, so desperately alone; Matt never knew what to do with himself, being so young and frail. Maybe that's why he originally strived to become L, because it gave him directive. He could become L because n he had no sense of self; it would fill in the hole of himself, the hiatus of his being.

It was true that Matt had a co-dependency issue. Mello knew every weakness and fallibility Matt had, exploiting it to his advantage. Mello was the most cunning of them all, and the most ruthless. The psychological breakdown Mello instilled into him ran further than spirituality, biology, or psychology. It wasn't deliberate, and for Christ's sake, they were only children then. Whether Mello knew it or not, there was a particular incident that would change the course of their lives.


End file.
